Built-in eDirectory Tools: NDS iMonitor and ICE

Novell Cool Solutions: Feature

Here's Part 2 of a look at some indispensable eDirectory tools. This article discusses the iMonitor and ICE utilities. For the full BrainShare presentation (TUT 252) on these tools, click here.

NDS iMonitor

Purpose

iMonitor provides web-based monitoring and diagnostic capabilities to all servers in your NDS tree. It is automatically installed when you install eDirectory 8.5 or later. To use iMonitor, just point your Web browser at http://<server>/nds.

You can use iMonitor as your primary diagnostic tool. Many of its features specifically address diagnosing and resolving situations that are often encountered by customers and Novell support engineers. Other features were added for engineering use in debugging and assisting support. You can check the version of iMonitor you're using by clicking the iMonitor logo in the upper left corner of the screen.

iMonitor Health Check Report

The iMonitor Health Check Report enables you to automatically assess the status of your entire tree. It lists the status of each server, and it lets you "drill down" to see the details.

Import Convert Export (ICE) Utility

ICE is a handy utility that imports and exports eDirectory data. It ships with eDirectory 8.5 and later. Here are some of the capabilities of ICE:

Handles LDIF files

Handles delimited (CSV) data

Handles schema definitions

Can convert data via DirXML rules

Performs any LDAP update operation, such as Add, Delete, Modify, Rename, and Move

ICE is a command-line utility, available as an iManager or ConsoleOne plug-in. It ships with the LDAP Libraries for C SDK. It may also include new updates since last eDirectory shipment.

ICE Architecture

Figure - ICE components

ICE Tips and Tricks

You can import data from delimited text files using the Delimited Data Handler. The Handler identifier is DELIM. CSV and tab-separated data. etc., can be used. The Delimited Date Handler is currently only available from the command line.

You can use File System Factory to set automatically create home directories for users imported via ICE.

You can do interesting things by combining handlers in different combinations: